Pointe Coupee School Board delays Central High opening

MORGANZA - A school closing in Pointe Coupee Parish has many parents extremely frustrated because now there is just one public high school, and parents worry it will not be enough for their kids.

For more than two decades Pointe Coupee Central High School has struggled to compete with surrounding schools. Six years ago, the state took it over and at the end of the 2014 school year a federal judge shut it down. But now, many parents and even a few school board members are pushing to reopen the school.

"I think it's a terrible idea," said Ashley Stevenson, a frustrated parent of a Pointe Coupee student. "Because it's going to be overcrowded, they put Central there so we could have another high school."

Stevenson graduated from Central in 2000 and now that her son is old enough to attend, that is where she wanted him to go.

"We want our kids with the best education," Stevenson said. "And I'm pretty sure all parents want the best for their kids and want them to learn. Some teacher is not going to be able to handle all those kids at one time."

School board member James Cline disagrees and said Livonia High is more than capable of handling the new students.

"The school board has made provisions to ensure that all our students would have adequate capacity and all the programs that anyone wants to attend," Cline said. "We have all the parking we need, we have all the facility that we need and the school is in real good shape."

Almost 200 students will be transferred from Pointe Coupee over to Livonia High.

"They're not going to be able to handle all those kids at all," Stevenson said. "The bad part is Livonia is the only other option we have."

Cline says the school board agrees there should be two public high schools and says it was not the school boards decision to close the school.

"That was done on a recommendation of the RSD to the federal judge," Cline said. "So he closed the school for the school year."

For the last six years, the state's Recovery School District has had control over the school. After failing to make improvements, they handed the keys back over to the parish school board and now it is their responsibility to get the school ready and open it back up when they feel prepared.